Monday, October 27, 2014

Except....Take all my cooking books over to our storage unit, cos I've got nowhere to put them right now.And... buy a big candle for the 'what's it' I got from the Hospice shop a while ago.

ABOVE: The 'what's it'... well... I don't know what to call it! And I'm not sure what colour candle to get either. *sigh*I suppose if that's all I've got to wonder about I'm lucky.Just remembered, my Uncle Frank gave us some advice, to try and get a fruit tree or two to actually GROW in our back yard. Our soil is solid clay, so we need to dig HUGE holes, put heaps of compost in and then the fruit tree.I'd love to get Stew onto digging a hole for a lemon tree.I can't keep knicking the neighbour's lemons!If it works, I might acutally think about spending more money on fruit trees. Our last lot of trees died. Such a waste of money.Right, that's about all I have to yabber on about today... for now.ONWARD...Success! Third shop we visited in the Apex Mega Centre (Freedom) and we found the perfect 'candle' for my what's it.

ABOVE: it's not even a 'real' candle! It's a plastic fantastic, battery operated flickering fake candle!Perfect. No safety issues with this one. And it fits almost perfectly too.Now we are off to Kings Plant Centre in Takanini for a lemon tree and compost. Then lunch at Manukau mall I think.

ABOVE: our 3rd lemon tree! Hopefully we keep this one alive!As advised by the Garden Centre, I've cut off the lemons so the tree grows bigger before producing fruit. At least we know it does grow fruit already.

ABOVE: Poor Stew! At least I kept him company, wrapped up in a blankie! It was bloody cold out there.

ABOVE: Fingers crossed we actually get more than ONE grape this year!

ABOVE: Tallulah in the rhubarb patch, cute little girl.

ABOVE: We now have 1 lemon, 2 feijoas and one other citrus, not sure what it is? Our two plum trees died, as did the tangelo and 2 Tree Tomatoes. *sigh*There is also the two grape vines, one of which is doing really well, and the other is struggling.I'm thinking of trying to grow passion fruit vine along that back fence now.Tomorrow I'm going to price half round concrete surrounds for the fruit trees, and see how much a passion fruit vine is too.LEIGH: thanks for that. I will not get concrete surrounds then!End of Day: well... we had nothing to do, but managed to fill in the day nicely after all that.nite nite

9 comments:

We are on clay too and I have a HUGE lemon tree and LOTs of fruit trees. The secret is gypsum and fertiliser. gypsum to allow the plant roots to penetrate the soil and fert to alter the ph of the clay :)

we have a very established lemon and orange tree in our backyard. We had an enormous mango tree as well which we loved (even tho the bats ate alllll the fruit) but it turned up it's roots about a year ago. Just went brown and died all of a sudden. It was very sad, but now I've learned that they do have an expiry date and apparently it was quite old.... :( Good luck with your trees, fresh, organic fruit is the best xxx

We tried to grow a few lemon trees on the farm. Lots of clay and no luck but finally succeeded when we planted one in a old wine barrel. I've moved the tree with me and it is full of lemons:-) Since then I've got a lime tree growing well also in a barrel. Then I tried to plant another lemon tree in the ground, it's looking really sad and I don't think it will last. Best of luck with yours and if they fail maybe try a wine barrel.

ME AND STEW

Both struggling to lose weight and be healthier. Parents of 6 adult 'kids' and 13 Grandkids. We have raised two of those grandkids since their births and they are now 16 and 17. December 2017: We have been caring for their 5 year old sister for over a year as well, but at the end of 2017 she will be moving to her new permanent home with our son Steve, and his wife Bex.

WHERE I LIVE:

New Zealand, it's in the South Pacific... and it's NOT a part of Australia! We are home of the All Blacks rugby team, the Kiwi (bird, but can't fly) and lots of bloody neat people!